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Arnold Rimmer
Arnold J Rimmer, BSc., SSc. '''was a second technician on mining ship Red Dwarf and was brought back as a hologram by Holly to keep Dave Lister sane. Biography Childhood '''Arnold Judas Rimmer was born on Io, somewhere during the 21st through 23rd centuries, where he suffered an unhappy childhood. He grew up in the shadow of his three older and more successful brothers, John, Howard and Frank, who tormented and bullied him throughout his youth and whose successes in both school and career greatly overshadowed him. His father had been rejected from the Space Corps in his youth for being an inch below regulation height, and was thus fixated on all his sons succeeding where he had failed; to which end, he refused to allow his sons to eat unless they could answer complicated astronavigation questions and to ensure that they would not be held back by insufficient height, were stretched on a rack to make them taller. His mother was a cold woman, who had no time for fools, but was having an affair with Rimmer's uncle Frank and Porky Roebuck's father. The Series III DVD booklet goes on to conjecture that Arnold's three brothers were actually Frank's children. Rimmer's family had a number of mottos, including "Winning isn't everything, but losing is nothing". His father once claimed "with shiny shoes and a short haircut you can cope with anything" before an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Arnold was also bullied by other children at school — where he was known as "Bonehead" and his best "friend", Porky Roebuck, once spearheaded a plan to eat him during a Space Scouts survival course. Rimmer later recounts an occasion on which Roebuck threw his favourite shoes into the school septic tank whilst he was wearing them. One of his friends once attacked Rimmer with the video case of Duel, leading to him possessing a scar on his chin. Rimmer took revenge by peeing in his attackers iron resulting in yellow t-shirts for a week. At the age of 14, Rimmer divorced his parents. Sometime during his life, Rimmer also earned two swimming certificates: one Bronze Swimming Certificate, and one Silver Swimming Certificate — BSc and SSc respectively — which he includes in official correspondence. It is later indicated that Rimmer cannot swim. During his years alone, Rimmer had a few unsuccessful jobs. One notable example was a brief stint as a Samaritan, a career which consisted of a single day of work before he quit. During this Sunday Rimmer spoke to five people, all of whom subsequently committed suicide, including one who dialled a wrong number, looking for the cricket scores. The incident was dubbed "Lemming Sunday" by the papers. Aboard Red Dwarf Rimmer joined the Space Corps at a low-entry level as a third technician, and devoted his life to his career, engaging with few activities outside of work. He is also rather unsuccessful with women, managing to have a sexual relationship with only one woman, Yvonne McGruder, the ship's female boxing champion. The entire encounter lasted little more than twelve minutes, including the time it took to eat a pizza. Rimmer claims that he lost his virginity in the back of his brother's Bentley with a girl named Sandra, though this was said in order to hide the fact that he actually lost it to Yvonne McGruder from Lister. The show's creators have also stated he was lying (as in the novel Better Than Life, where it was explained that he fumbled the details of his first experience of 'second base' to avoid the embarrassment of admitting the truth). Despite serving in the Space Corps for fourteen years, he never managed to become an officer, only to further himself from third technician to second technician. He has attempted to pass the astronavigation exam thirteen times, as is required to become an officer, but has failed on every occasion, frequently because he spends the allotted revision time indulging his talent for calligraphy and design in the creation of an elaborate timetables, leaving no time for actual revision. In the ensuing panic he often takes up chain smoking and becomes dependent on stimulants in an attempt to condense months of complex learning into just a few days. In turn this has pushed Rimmer to several psychotic episodes and breakdowns during exams, and on one occasion lead to him being hospitalized after the stress forced him to deny his own existence during the exam, the subsequent paper consisting of him writing out, four hundred times, "I am a fish". However, he believes the reason he has been kept down is due to an incident where he was invited to the captain's table and humiliated himself when served gazpacho soup, which he demanded be taken away and brought back hot. During his service on Red Dwarf, he is assigned to both work with and share quarters with third technician Dave Lister, the only member of the crew of Red Dwarf that he out ranks. The two are notably different in personality — unlike the uptight and pompous Rimmer, Lister is unmotivated, slovenly, relaxed and well-liked. After the Accident Rimmer died in the radiation leak which wiped out the entire crew of Red Dwarf, with the exception of Lister, who was in stasis at the time, and Lister's pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who was safe in the ship's hold. Three million years later, when Lister was brought out of stasis, Rimmer was chosen by the ship's computer Holly to be reactivated as a hologram in order to keep Lister company and prevent him from being driven insane with loneliness. He was chosen simply because only one hologram could be active at any given time and Rimmer was the person Lister spoke to most. It is from this point that Rimmer's "life" is covered in Red Dwarf. As a "soft-light" hologram, Rimmer retains his memories and physical appearance, but is composed of light and has no tangible form (other than a small "light bee" projection unit when away from Red Dwarf). He remains very unhappy with his lot after his death, frequently bemoaning his fate. Despite his dissatisfaction with his existence, he bitterly resists any move to turn him off. He remains as obnoxious and difficult to like for his crew mates as he was before his death, and gradually develops a pompous tendency to quote Space Corps Directives at any possible opportunity — even if though he often quotes the wrong one. In Series VI, he encounters a being known as Legion, who upgrades Rimmer's projection unit from "soft light" to "hard light", giving him a physical form and the ability to interact directly with the world, in addition to making him virtually indestructible (but still capable of feeling pain). To conserve power (more of which is required for Rimmer's hard-light hologram) he normally uses soft light, only switching to hard light when necessary. In Series VII, Rimmer is approached by a dying alternate version of himself, Ace Rimmer, who asks Rimmer to become a defender of the multiverse upon Ace's death. Although initially hesitant, Rimmer finds himself rising to the challenge and leaves to start his new life. Returned to Life When Red Dwarf is restored by nanobots in Series VIII, the entire crew is restored to life as well, including Rimmer, although, as he is resurrected as he was at the time of the accident, he lacks any of the growth that the 'other' Rimmer has gone through since the series began, reverting him back to his original persona. Due to a series of events, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, the Cat and Kristine Kochanski are sentenced to two years in the ship's brig for misuse of confidential information. At the end of Series VIII, in the final episode, "Only the Good..., when a chameleonic microbe destroys Red Dwarf and everyone else evacuates on Starbug and Blue Midget shuttles or to a mirror universe, Rimmer is trapped on the disintegrating ship. at the end of the episode he encounters the Grim Reaper, announcing that he is dead (again), and then tells him that they'll travel to the River Styx, until Rimmer interrupts him and says, "Not today, matey!" knees him in the groin and flees. In the alternate ending the alternate cat doesn't write the formula down forcing Rimmer to memorize the extremly long name. After several trips back and forth between the dimensions he manages to repeat the formula to everyone, only to become annoyed when he finds out that they all know about it. With the antidote administered the microbe is destroyed, leaving Rimmer and the group as the only ones left on the ship once more. As they celebrate, Rimmer spots the Blue Midgets with the rest of the crew. Upon seeing the Captain, Kryten asks if they should rescue them, to which Rimmer replies "Maintain course Mr Kryten. I see no ships." Hologram Again In Back to Earth it is seen that Rimmer is once again a hologram, hard-light. It is assumed that he either died during the disintegration of Red Dwarf (which was somehow reversed or undone) or died during the nine year interval between Series VIII and Back to Earth (his more aged appearance might indicate that he aged as a human and then died later). Rimmer seems to retain the memories of both his human and previous holographic selves (memories of the despair squid incident for example), it is speculated that his hologram disk was merged with the old one. Rimmer, much like the rest of the crew, has spent the last nine years the way he always has, studying for his never ending string of exams, being annoyed by Lister, and reading up on his obscure hobbies. He seems to have taken up an interest in automobiles, as he enjoys reading old car magazines. He may have had this trait for a while, but this is the first time it is seen. During the events of Back to Earth, they are attacked by another despair squid and hallucinate that they travel back to the planet Earth during the year 2009 and discover that they are just characters from the television show "Red Dwarf" (similar to how the first time they found that their lives were just a video game). This hallucination is notable due to Rimmer's reaction to the coming of Katerina Bartikovsky a hologram of a Red Dwarf science officer, who seeks to replace him. Nicknames Arnold would like for people to call him fraternal nicknames such as Ace, Arnie J, Big Man, Duke, Old Ironbutt, and Old Ironballs. However, he actually gets called things like Acehole, Trans-Am Wheel Arch Nostrils, Grand Canyon Nostrils, Laundry Chute Nostrils, Captain Sadness, Captain Boring, Captain Yawn, Molecule Mind, Goal-Post Head, Alphabet Head, Smeg-For-Brains, Toilet-Brush Hair and Smeghead. At school, Arnold's nickname was Bonehead (when Arnold ask Lister to call him by his nickname, Lister says "what bonehead" then Arnold says "how did you know my nickname was Bonehead" and Lister responds with "i was only guessing"(RD: Kryten)). The second holographic copy of Arnold from Me2 called him Mr. Gazpacho in memory of the Gazpacho soup incident, which Rimmer regarded as the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to him. Personality Rimmer's primary character traits include anal-retentiveness, over-adherence to protocol, cowardice, misogyny, and a severely inflated ego matched only by his deep-seated sense of self-loathing (which was evident in Me2). As the highest ranking survivor (despite his holographic status) Rimmer frequently deludes himself into believing that he is in charge and that he has somehow been molding "his" crew into an effective space-going unit. Rimmer is very fond of war, or at least the romantic principles of it, although, due to his cowadice, he prefers to be the general, who he sees in a tent behind the battlefield as the grunts die for him. He claims that he was told in all his former lives he was a soldier who has been tragically incarnated in a coward's body, despite earlier claiming to have been Alexander the Great's chief eunuch in a past life. Due to this, he idolizes many military leaders, such as Napoleon, Alexander the Great and even Adolf Hitler, who he describes as the "leader of the runners-up in WW2." He was finally able to live his dream of commanding an army in the Series IV episode "Meltdown", leading an army of "good" wax-droids against a much larger force of "evil" wax-droids. Although Rimmer ultimately succeeds in destroying the opposing army, his forces are completely wiped out. In addition to his fondness for militarism and Hammond organ music, Rimmer also enjoys Morris dancing and is an authority on 20th century telegraph poles (especially those observed while train spotting), and diesel engines. In Back to Earth he appears to have taken up an interest in automobiles. Many episodes of Red Dwarf focus on the conflict between Rimmer's ego and his neuroses. In "Me²", Rimmer manages to trick Lister into generating a holographic duplicate in order to provide him with a companion; however, as a consequence of Rimmer's self-loathing, the two Rimmers are incapable of getting along, and their interaction becomes so bitter and hate-filled that the duplicate must be turned off. In "Terrorform", a psi-moon sculpted to reflect Rimmer's psychological make-up becomes a desolate, swampy hell-hole dominated by Rimmer's Self-Loathing, personified as a sadistic beast, with a metaphysical graveyard marking the "demise" of his various virtuous qualities. In "Better Than Life" Rimmer is so used to never getting a break that his mind can't accept nice things happening to him and turns the fantasy into a nightmare Rimmer's personality flaws are in fact almost completely a result of his hang-ups. An alternative version of Rimmer, Ace Rimmer, who was kept back a year in school, learned humility and inner strength and grew up to become a charming and well-liked Space Corps test pilot, interstellar hero and sexual seducer. On top of this, Rimmer is not incapable of nobility, honour and love. When Red Dwarf encounters a holoship, with an all-hologram crew composed of the "best and brightest", Rimmer desperately wants to join. A female officer aboard the ship, Nirvanah Crane, falls in love with him and sacrifices her place on the ship for Rimmer, only for Rimmer to do the same in return. This act of nobility surprises (and disgusts) even Rimmer himself. Furthermore in the episode "Out of Time", Rimmer is revolted by his corrupted future self to the point that he'd rather do battle with him than surrender, later risking his life to try and bring the others back after they are killed by their future selves by destroying the time drive that would allow their future selves to come back in the first place. When he became infected with the Holo-virus, Rimmer displayed a darker, more malevolent nature where he attempted to kill the rest of the crew in a number of different ways, from W.O.O (With Out Oxygen) to hex powers. He also displayed a sadistic side when he put them in quarantine in order for them to get on each others nerves and for his own amusement. He also twisted their words cunningly during their incarceration by making their humouring of his insanity appear like they are the insane ones. This involved him telling them the King of the Potato People held the reigns to their freedom and they need a magic carpet to see them. When Lister answered they had one, Rimmer responded that their desire to see the King of the Potato People on a magic carpet sounded insane to him and he would punish them with W.O.O for being "breadbaskets." Skills Arnold earned both a Bronze Swimming Certificate and a Silver Swimming Certificate. He is very proud of these certificates often tagging them on to the end of his name (Arnold.J.Rimmer BSC,SSC,) although despite this he is unable to swim according (though this was only mentioned during a hallucination and his ability or inability is never shown on the show). He also earned four Long Service medals: three years, six years, nine years, and twelve years. One of Arnold's hobbies is attempting to memorize things. He has failed to memorize the Space Corps Directives, his engineering textbook, and Shakespeare's Richard III. He has also failed to learn Esperanto. Likes and Dislikes Arnold likes the Hammond Organ, Morris dancing (to the extent that he reads Morris Dancer Monthly Magazine), Risk, fishing, cars, rules and structure, authority, war, and great military strategists (especially Napoleon, Caesar, and Patton), dividing each alphabet spaghetti letter with its fellows. He also enjoys colouring in the dividers in his itineraries and Christian Rock Music (one of the selection is Frank Assisi and the Apostles - Hymns in Rock). Arnold dislikes Gazpacho soup, Dave Lister, The Cat, Kryten, drive plates, himself, his parents, and successful people. Appearance Rimmer's status as a hologram in most episodes of Red Dwarf is shown by the "H" on the centre of his forehead, leading to nicknames from The Cat, such as "alphabet head" and "goalpost head". Rimmer keeps his unmanageable hair relatively short, feeling that it makes him feel like a man. When Lister and The Cat respond to a drill too slowly, Rimmer argues for increased discipline and sensible haircuts, believing that "every major battle in history has been won by the side with the shortest haircuts". Rimmer's Space Corps uniform changes several times during the course of the show. In the Series I and Series II it is a grey-and-beige shirt-and-tie ensemble; in Series III and Series IV this becomes a green suit with a shiny high-collared jacket, which is changed to red in Series V; in Series VI and Series VII, Rimmer's jacket becomes quilted and is red when he is in soft-light form and blue for hard-light; the alive Rimmer in Series VIII wears an all-beige uniform similar in design to the original. In the 2009 three part special Back to Earth, Rimmer wears a blue suit (to symbolize that he is hard-light) similar to his Series III and IV green suit but with the addition of a plain waist-high belt worn over the jacket and a quilted collar; possibly being part of a quilted under shirt which though the jacket is not removed at all during any of the three episodes. The hologram "H" on his forehead also changes from series to series: it starts as a dull grey colour and a blocky shape, then in Series III it becomes bright blue and reflective, then in Series V its shape is changed to a thinner and more stylized font. His "H" also briefly changes to a reflective red colour set inside a circle when he temporarily joins the holoship SS Enlightenment. Also when Rimmer was in the final stages of the holo virus infection the H turnned jet black and appeared degraded looking. Possibly as a result of the virus infection. Behind the Scenes Among the actors who auditioned for Rimmer were Norman Lovett (who went on to play Holly instead), David Baddiel, Hugh Laurie, and Alfred Molina. Initially Molina was cast as Rimmer, however, the role was recast and filled by Chris Barrie (one of Barrie's first television roles was a guest on Blackadder the Third which starred Hugh Laurie), a professional voice-actor and impressionist. Barrie, who had originally auditioned for Lister, was familiar with Rob Grant and Doug Naylor having worked together on Son of Cliché (in which he played Hab in Dave Hollins: Space Cadet) and Spitting Image, and with the producers on Happy Families and various Jasper Carrott productions. He has appeared in all but four episodes of the show, which he missed in Series VII due to scheduling conflicts. Rimmer was played by Chris Eigeman in the first American pilot and then by Anthony Fuscle in the second pilot. The character's distinctive "H" was replaced with a marble-shaped object in the first pilot, but the "H" returned in the second one. Chris Barrie was given an offer to reprise his role, but turned it down for fear of being tied into a restrictive, long-term contract, which is common in American television production. The female Rimmer in the Series II episode "Parallel Universe" was played by Suzanne Bertish, an actress primarily known for her classical stage work. She had been asked by director Ed Bye to play the part. "Young Rimmer", who had minor speaking roles in three episodes in Series III and IV, was played by child actor Simon Gaffney. After years of having the 'H' glued to his head it seems that the wrinkles on Chris Barrie's forhead are malformed, whenever he does not have the 'H' the wrinkles are not horizontal but seem to bend around where the 'H' should be. Quotes * to take inventory "Four thousand, six hundred and ninety one irradiated haggis." (RD: Balance of Power) * that Holly has given him a short haircut but has actually given him a thick head of woman's hair "It may be a bit severe, a bit too green beret, but you are how you look, and I look - like a complete and total tit!" (RD: Future Echoes) * Rimmer: "Morning, Lister! How's life in hippie heaven, you pregnant baboon bellied space beatnik? What's the plan for the day then? Slobbing in the morning, followed by slobbing in the afternoon, then a bit of a snooze before the main evening's slob? God, you're a disgrace to the species." * Lister: "Good morning, Rimmer." (RD: Future Echoes) * "Imagine making love to a woman!" (RD: Waiting For God) * "Wrong, wrong. Absolutely brimming over with wrongability." (RD: Confidence and Paranoia) * "Oh, good. Switch me on, switch me off, like i'm some battery-powered sex aid!" (RD: Future Echoes) * "Well, if you have any more problems with nothing or things that don't matter, just scream out my name hysterically and I'll come pelting down the corridor!" (RD: Future Echoes) * "They've been very bad, Mr. Flibble. What're we going to do with them?" (RD: Quarantine) * the way Kochanski said his name "It was the way she said it . . . Rimmer. Rimmer. To rhyme with scum." (RD: Balance of Power) * a letter from his mother addressing him as an admiral "Every time I take an exam, I tell her I passed. It's getting embarrassing. I should be commander-in-chief of the whole universe by now." (RD: Better Than Life) * "I'm organised, I'm dedicated to my career, I've always got a pen. Result? Total smeghead despised by everyone except the ship's parrot. And that's only because we haven't got one." (RD: Thanks for the Memory) * "Everyone leaves me. Girls, parents. I had a pet lemming once." (RD: Stasis Leak) * his female counterpart "She accused me of wiggling my bottom in a provocative way. I was just walking! Can I help it if I happen to be sexy?" (RD: Parallel Universe) * "Unpack Rachel and get out the puncture repair kit! I'm alive!!" (RD: Timeslides) * "At least he gets 24 hours; that's more than most of us get. All most of us get is: 'mind-that-bus-what-bus-splat.'" (RD: The Last Day) * Kryten: "Who would allow this man, this joke of a man, this man who could not outwit a used tea bag, to be in a position where he might endanger the entire crew? Who? Only a yoghurt. This man is not guilty of manslaughter, he is only guilty of being Arnold J. Rimmer. That is his crime; it is also his punishment. The defence rests." (RD: Justice) * "You think I'm a petty minded, bureaucratic nincompoop who delights in enforcing pernickity regulations 'cause he gets some sort of perverse pleasure out of it. And in many ways, you're absolutely damned right. That doesn't alter the fact that the only way we're gonna track down Red Dwarf and get through this in one piece is with a sense of discipline, a sense of purpose, and wherever possible, a sensible haircut." (RD: Emohawk) * "I just want to say: over the years, I have come to regard you as . . . people I met." (RD: Holoship) * been informed of a Space Corps directive that requires hologramatic crew to be shut down if it allows others to survive "Yes, but Rimmer Directive 271 states just as clearly: 'No chance, you metal bastard'." (RD: White Hole) * "All right, I admit I'm nothing; but with what I started with ... nothing is up." (RD: The Inquisitor) * "We're not getting out of here in one piece, or if we do, it'll be one big flat piece." (RD: Gunmen of the Apocalypse) * "Look, I think we've all got something to bring to this conversation, but I think that from now on the thing you should bring is silence." (RD: Gunmen of the Apocalypse) * "Kryten, kindly get to the point before I jam your nose between your cheeks and make it the filling of a buttocks sandwich." (RD: Rimmerworld) * the sexual magnetism virus "The world loves a bastard." (RD: Back in the Red I) * "He was never proud of me. What other father would claim to have an alibi for his sperm on the night of conception?" (RD: Back in the Red II) * "Me? Not make it? What does he know? The big, stupid, yellow idiot. He doesn't see my good side, my guile, my weasel cunning. When the going gets tough, my ability to find good hiding places." (RD: Only the Good) * "The point I'm trying to make, you dirty son of a fetid whoremonger's bitch, is that we're friends!" (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers) * [Lister has speculated that he started playing Better Than Life on Mimas and hence the rest of the crew don't exist] "Oh, great. Not only am I dead, I don't exist, either! Thanks a lot, God!" (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers) * "Spaghettification. Let me guess. I can see only two options: one -- due to the bizarre effects of the intense gravitational pull, and because we're entering a region of time and space where the laws of physics no longer apply, we all of us inexplicably develop an irresistible urge to consume vast amounts of a certain wheat-based Italian noodle conventionally served with Parmesan cheese; or two -- we, the crew, get turned into spaghetti. I have a feeling we can eliminate option one." (RD: Better Than Life) * "If Ace once again refers to me as a fruit or a vegetable, I'll take that welding torch and set his poofy fringe on fire." (RD: Backwards) * "Lister, 'okay' is not a threat, no matter how many 'a's you put on the end." (RD: Balance of Power) * "Being the driving force of the Red Dwarf mission, the fearless Rimmer had to dice with death on a regular basis." from Arnold J. Rimmer's Diary (RD: Blue) * [In The Rimmer Song] "He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer. Without him, life would be much grimmer. He's handsome, trim and no-one slimmer. He will never need a Zimmer." (RD: Blue) Notes * The creators of the series acknowledge that Rimmer's surname comes from a snobby prefect with whom they attended school. They claim, however, that only the boy's name was used, and not his personality. Trivia * Arnold likes to eat his food in alphabetical order. * When he met that "special someone," Arnold wanted their song to be Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me." * Arnold's handwriting is described as being a neat copperplate style. Copperplate is an extremely uniform style - exactly the kind they teach in school. This is the same style of handwriting possesed by Hannibal Lecter. * Arnold tells people that his middle name is Jonathan when really it is Judas. * Arnold once owned a Lemming who he loved but eventually had to kill by slamming it against a wall when he (the lemming) bit Arnold's finger and wouldn't let go. He still held a grudge against it millennia after it's death because "the little git completely ruined my helicopter wallpaper (RD: Stasis Leak). * In the books, Rimmer was a First Technician while in the Episodes, he is a Second Technician instead. External Links * "Why It Would Kick Arse to Be Arnold J. Rimmer" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw Category:Characters